Composer

“A composer who is full of effective ideas.” The Journal of Music

Described by The New York Times as a composer of “alluring soundscapes”, Peter Fahey’s music has been performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall and the National Concert Hall Dublin by some of the leading interpreters of new music including the American Composers Orchestra, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Continuum, Crash Ensemble, Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles, ensemble recherche, Ensemble SurPlus and Talea Ensemble; soloists have included Tony Arnold, Dario Calderone and Philip Higham. His music has been featured at festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, Gaudeamus Muziekweek and Festival Música Nova, Brazil and broadcast on RTÉ (Ireland), WQXR (New York), Concertzender (The Netherlands), MDR (Germany) and elsewhere.

He has been awarded the American Composers Orchestra’s Underwood Commission; the Stefan Kaske Fellowship from the Wellesley Composers Conference; a Susan and Ford Schumann Fellowship from the Aspen Music Festival and School; the Robbins Family Prize in Composition from Cornell University; the Franz Liszt Stipendium from the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar; and a number of awards from the Arts Council of Ireland including a 2018 Next Generation Award. He has also received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Centre for the Creative Arts and he has been a guest artist at Yaddo.

Born and raised in Ireland, Peter began his music education there, followed by studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England; at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; and, as an exchange scholar, at Columbia University, New York. His teachers have included Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, Fabien Lévy, David Horne and Eric Sweeney. He has participated in the Royaumont Foundation’s Voix nouvelles Composition Session, France, directed by Brian Ferneyhough and Johannes Schöllhorn; the Summer Academy for Young Composers at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, directed by Chaya Czernowin; the Aspen Music Festival and School Master Class Program, directed by Christopher Rouse and Matthias Pintscher; the Tactus Young Composers’ Forum, Belgium; the Darmstadt Summer Courses; and the “Next Generation” programme at the Donaueschingen Festival.

Current projects include a new work for the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra (Composer Lab 2019), an expanded version of “装配线” for LAPS Ensemble (Brussels) and a half-concert length work for pianist Andrew Zhou commissioned by the Arts Council of Ireland.